Apple Denies the Closing of Darwin x86 Kernel

In the Fed-Talk mailing list, Ernest Prabhakar (Apple’s product manager for Open Source & Open Standards) denies that Apple is going to close the Darwin kernel for x86: “Just to be clear, Tom Yager was speculating about why we have – so far – not released the source code of the kernel for Intel-based Macintoshes. We continue to release all the Darwin sources for our PowerPC systems, and so far have released all the non-kernel Darwin sources for Intel. Nothing has been announced, so he (and everyone else) certainly has the right to speculate. But please don’t confuse ‘speculation’ with ‘fact’.”

Er, no. Most great things have come from reasoned debate supported by facts. Speculation is what led to things like the eugenics movement and McCarthyism.

The fact is most Interent sites don’t do a great deal of research, certainly not news-aggregators like OSNews.com. Thus, a “Page 2” rumour on Macrumors.com may be repeated without the “Page 2” warning on Infinite Loop over at arstechnica.com, then reported here as news instead of rumour, and then picked up by Slashdot and the rest of the blogosphere as established fact.

In some cases these unsubstantiated rumours-considered-fact are then used to shout down actual newsworthy items, or to wrongfully argue a point within a debate, harming the dissemination of real knowledge and ideas.

McCartyism was in the beginning reasonable and just, considering the situation, even though it went out of control later on.

The Eugenics movement was mostly based on facts. The only reason it stopped was due to the Nazis taking a sort of patent on their “solution”. This simply made Eugenics unacceptable in the long term. But from a scientific view point it would lead to a better genetic standard if persons with low IQ and etc. was banned from reproduction.

However, it would be completely unacceptable, and a very cruel way to treat other people.

Don’t forget that the author of the mentioned “rumour” actually had a point, considering how slow Apple is to release sources, and considering the usual tight-lipped behaviour. If you don’t want rumours, then give them facts.

McCartyism was in the beginning reasonable and just, considering the situation, even though it went out of control later on.

Indeed, and the reason it went out of control was rampant speculation, with accusations being hurled at anyone who’d even looked at a socialist pamphlet in the past.

The Eugenics movement was mostly based on facts. The only reason it stopped was due to the Nazis taking a sort of patent on their “solution”. This simply made Eugenics unacceptable in the long term. But from a scientific view point it would lead to a better genetic standard if persons with low IQ and etc. was banned from reproduction.

There are a lot of things wrong with this. First off, from a scientific point of view, Eugenics would not lead to a better population. What would happen is that everyone in the population would eventually be just about as good as the best person currently existing and then… nothing. There would be no evolution or innovation, as meddling would have destroyed all differences in the gene-pool, and left no room for further development.

This is why when people are developing genetic algorithms, they use algorithms like “Tournament Selection”. These prefer the fittest individuals, but through chance allow less fit individuals to contribute to the evolution of the next generation. This ensures that there is always variety in the gene-pool, and thusly room for further development. It’s important to realise that if an unskilled person has a particular talent, they will still be comparatively unskilled, but if they were to mate with a skilled person, that talent would then be passed off to their offspring, who would be more talented by far.

Lastly, there is the awkward question of how do you evaluate the fitness of a human being. Back when eugenics got started around the turn of the 20th century, they were not interested in IQ, they were interested in size and strength. Had they succeeded, the resulting offspring would have been wholly unsuited for today’s world.

Likewise, IQ is not reliable: average IQ scores in the developed world have been increasing steadily for the last 60 odd years. That’s too short of a time for evolution to make people smarter, but it is just about right for the advances in the provision of education to all sectors of society to have an effect (60 years ago a lot of people left school age 12 to 15). However if education has an effect on IQ scores, then IQ cannot be an accurate measure of intelligence. Indeed, most people are not at all comfortable with the use of so-called “IQ” tests.

It is ironic that your comment is an example of speculation gone wild. Without looking into genetics or the history of McCarthyism in any depth, you have “guessed” that they were okay, and then proceeded to built your argument on top of that (false) assumption.

Don’t forget that the author of the mentioned “rumour” actually had a point, considering how slow Apple is to release sources, and considering the usual tight-lipped behaviour. If you don’t want rumours, then give them facts.

First off, Apple generally likes rumours. Secondly, it’s not up to Apple to ensure that everything is said about Apple is correct: it is the ethical responsibility of journalists and publishers to ensure that the information they deseminate is true to the best of their ability.

Psychologists equate IQ to intelligence (they assume professional IQ tests measure something we call intelligence), but only because of lack of a better alternative. IQ tests focus mostly on mathematical and linguistic intelligence (and sometimes even spatial), but thats about it. They are too limited to be referred to as a true measuremtn of someone’s intellectual capabilities. Anyone using IQ tests as a way to select people is making a HUGE mistake.

Because it’s the closest you get to Mac OS X without it being Mac OS X

But OpenDarwin is “Open Source”.

Personally, I’m considering making a home-built test-system, utilizing LFS in Patrakov’s UTF-8 version combined with a GoboLinux-like approach in order to create a GNUstep-system with a directory layout identical to OPENSTEP. Just as a play thing

You may want to check out the LinuxSTEP project, it does something close to what you’re proposing. It’s halted though. Their website (linuxstep.org) is down, so you should check thier ideas using web.archive.org.

But really, if you want to pick a base system for a GNUstep based environment you should go for the best option, not the one that is more like OS X. Building a Free clone of OS X sounds interesting, but why stop there if you can do better? GNU/Linux or FreeBSD are better than OpenDarwin in almost everyway.

I’m aware of LinuxSTEP and its goals, but as you write, the site is down.

I’ll make sure to visit web.archive.org .

Choosing between GNU/Linux and FreeBSD is a sore trial. The safe choice for me would be me GNU/Linux, but safe choices tend to be exactly that. Safe and boring

I ought to run some performance tests on GNUstep and non-GNUstep applications within a GNUstep system. It appears that Firefox launches in half the time of what is required in Gnome. I have to measure it precisely to be sure, though.

Rather, he claimed that Tom Yager was speculating, and then confirmed what Yager had said.

It’s a classic example of spin doctoring.

Please, for [insert personal Divinity here]’s sake, the context for what Mr. Prabhakar was referring to is the ongoing discussion on the Fed-talk mailing list on Apple regarding the subject. Would you please read the whole thread, which begins on

Thom, when I was a Product Manager, the only way I would have phrased it like that would have been if there was an internal debate under way, and I was trying to limit the damage in case it ended up on the side of openness.

Now maybe that’s too subtle. But if you mean to release as usual, and that is policy, why not just say so?

I had to read the article and reply twice to realize that the Apple guy is talking from his butt.

Here was the original assertion:

“The Darwin open source Mach/Unix core shared by OS X Tiger client and OS X Tiger Server remains completely open for PowerPC Macs. If you have a G3, G4, or G5 Mac, you can hack your own Darwin kernel and use it to boot OS X. But if you have an Intel-based Mac desktop or notebook, your kernel and device drivers are inviolable. ”

So he is saying that the source code for PPC is still available. He is saying that oddly somehow the sources for Intel are not available, and that there must be a reason.

What did the Apple guy reply?

“Just to be clear, Tom Yager was *speculating* about why we have — so far — not released the source code of the kernel for Intel-based Macintoshes. We continue to release *all* the Darwin sources for our PowerPC systems, and so far has released all the non-kernel Darwin sources for Intel.

Nothing has been announced, so he (and everyone else) certainly has the right to speculate. But please don’t confuse “speculation” with “fact.””

Ok, so the Apple guy just repeated what the guy said when he was SPECULATING… I have no idea what the intention was other than to confuse, and that sure worked!

It is reasonable to assume that since the Intel version of Mac OS X has been developed in secrecy at Apple, that their version of the kernel has diverged a good deal from the open version that has been included with the PowerPC version of Mac OS X.

Isn’t it possible that they are more interested in fixing bugs in the Intel version of the kernel and working towards the 10.5 kernel, than tidying up the code to be released publicly?

OK, here’s a fact: Today, xnu/x86 10.4.6 is not open source, and Apple has not made any announcement about opening it.

I agree with Mr. Prabhakar; customers should make decisions based on facts, not speculation. In this case, assuming that Apple will “do the right thing” (for those 0.0001% of their customers who want to recompile the kernel) is the speculation.

Those BSD licenses get you every time. People can just in the middle of the road close the source or like with Microsoft using BSD stuff like the TCP/IP stack, FTP, Telnet etc, they can make changes, do whatever and if they want to open it they can and if they don’t want to they wont!

Yes that could happen with Linux, but that would take a license change and at least people will know its coming and can go in another direction.

What a mess! Even though I love using the Mac OS, now I have to put it in the same class (As far as leaching) as Windows.

Those BSD licenses get you every time. People can just in the middle of the road close the source or like with Microsoft using BSD stuff like the TCP/IP stack, FTP, Telnet etc, they can make changes, do whatever and if they want to open it they can and if they don’t want to they wont!

So what exactly is wrong with that. If someone writes a good piece of code that they feel every operating system could make use of it’s far better to have a BSD liscense. As much as Linux adocates preach about vendor lock-in they’re no better. They’re effectively saying to developers, “once you release this code it can’t leave our sights.” They’re like over protective parents who refuse to let they’re children make up their own minds, because they fail to trust them. What’s wrong ifa little code makes it into a closed source program? If it it manages to improve the program isn’t that a good thing. Maybe as a result the closed source company makes some improvements to the code and decides to release them. Maybe they don’t, but I’d far rather have the entire developement communitym write better code that lets applications run without a hitch and bug free rather than say I need to every piece of code in your program. I’m neither pro closed source or pro open source, I’m pro good source.

You most not be from around here. You see, were it not for the GPL (and Linux’s establishment of the modern internet-based development model), open source would very likely be dead or dying. If you read up on your history, you’d realize that the GPL wasn’t just some hare-brained scheme for open source world domination. It was written as a reaction to the perceived failure of the BSD license. In the beginning, people assumed, as you do now, that closed source developers would incorporate their BSD-licensed code, realize the beauty of the open source development model and contribute their changes back. By and large, this didn’t happen. Many of the contributing community in the BSD and *nix world felt wronged that much of *their* hard work was being incorporated into more successful commercial projects without any credit or compensation. The GPL alleviates this, to a large extent.

I really don’t understand why people get their hackles up about the GPL. It’s just a license. It’s the developer’s choice. I have no clue what you’re talking about when you say that the GPL is “like over protective parents who refuse to let they’re children make up their own minds”. The developers choose the license. If they choose the GPL and I want to tinker with the source, I have to comply with the license. It’s really not that hard. There’s nothing overprotective about it. If anything, the original developer of the software is being protective of their investment of time and effort. The GPL is merely the vehicle by which they assure their labors stay in the public arena and aren’t absconded by some company with selfish intentions (which, if you follow any kind of tech news at all, are the norm, not the exception… see any DRM company’s disassembled code).

Your assumption that privately co-opted BSD code somehow leads to better code and coding standards is not only baseless, it’s stupid. Where is it said that good code and open code are mutually exclusive? I’d like to see those statistics, please.

The entire OSS community owes its vitality to Linux and the success of the GPL, regardless of your thoughts on the license’s provisions. Each license has its strengths and weaknesses. It’s time for all this religious warfare surrounding a developer’s choice to stop. It’s childish.

You see, were it not for the GPL (and Linux’s establishment of the modern internet-based development model), open source would very likely be dead or dying.

Open source has been around since IBM SHARE, which, IIRC, was founded in the 1960s. There was plenty of open source floating around when the GPL got written, and there’s plenty around that’s not covered by the GPL. (C.F. comp.sources, DECUS, SHARE, the ACM collected algorithms, et cetera)

If you read up on your history, you’d realize that the GPL wasn’t just some hare-brained scheme for open source world domination.

Oh, I don’t know. I remember when RMS issued the GPL, and it sure seemed like a hare-brained scheme for open source world domination at the time. I think I even told him so, although I didn’t save email from that long ago.

In the beginning, people assumed, as you do now, that closed source developers would incorporate their BSD-licensed code, realize the beauty of the open source development model and contribute their changes back.

I suppose there were “people” who assumed that. You can pretty much find “people” who will assume anything. No one who was familiar with how software development was being done felt that, though.

The GPL is merely the vehicle by which they assure their labors stay in the public arena and aren’t absconded by some company with selfish intentions.

I think of all the misconceptions about the GPL, this one is the most annoying. The GPL does not assure that the original author’s code stay in the public arena. The original author’s releasing it into the public arena does. Once there, it’s there. This is just as true of every license that allows redistribution of source.

The GPL doesn’t even assure that changes made to someone’s source code and then used commercially are forced into the arena. You think not? Ask Google for their changes to Linux.

I think there’d be a lot less controversy over the GPL if its supporters would do a more accurate job of portraying what it is, what it does, and what impact it has had on the industry.

I think of all the misconceptions about the GPL, this one is the most annoying. The GPL does not assure that the original author’s code stay in the public arena. The original author’s releasing it into the public arena does. Once there, it’s there. This is just as true of every license that allows redistribution of source.

This is where you are terribly wrong. GPL does secure source access. BSD does not. BSD _may_ give access to source, but there is no guarantee. There is with GPL, because lack of access to source is a violation of the GPL-license.

Source released as BSD can disappear again. Websites dies, FTP-sites disappear, etc. Only if the source is still being circulated will it be accessible. If not it’s gone forever.

With GPL there is a legal obligation to deliver source code. This is where the guarantee is to be found.

You can find a lot of things released on the net which has ceased to be. They have disappeared. This can of course happen with GPL, but then we have a license violation.

The GPL doesn’t even assure that changes made to someone’s source code and then used commercially are forced into the arena. You think not? Ask Google for their changes to Linux.

Well, Google isn’t distributing anything in regard to the Linux-kernel.

Googles web-services do not equal distributing. That’s why they don’t have to release the source. They are not distributing. It’s that simple.

This is where you are terribly wrong. GPL does secure source access. BSD does not. BSD _may_ give access to source, but there is no guarantee. There is with GPL, because lack of access to source is a violation of the GPL-license.

Please consult a good introduction to intellectual property and copyright law.

As owner of the source code copyright, I do not license it to myself. I license it to others. This means that I am not bound by the license.

Both the BSD license and the GPL grant access to the source. As copyright holder, I can revoke either license and remove future access to my modifications to the source.

What I can not do, in either case, is force someone who has access to already released sources to stop accessing those sources. (I can stop them from distributing the source, but not from using it themselves.)

In both cases, once the source is out there, it is, from a legal perspective, out there.

In neither case, is the originator of the source required to release future updates to other parties. One merely has to change the license one releases the source under — or not release it at all.

The only significant way the GPL license differs from the BSD license, and it is both an advantage and a disadvantage, is that it compels those who both modify the source and distribute products based on that modification to distribute the modifications as well as the original source.

Even then, GPL fans misunderstand the license. It does not compel the second party to release their modifications. It merely denies them the right to distribute products based on the source if they refuse.

You most not be from around here. You see, were it not for the GPL (and Linux’s establishment of the modern internet-based development model), open source would very likely be dead or dying. If you read up on your history, you’d realize that the GPL wasn’t just some hare-brained scheme for open source world domination.

First of all I’ve been visiting OSNews for four years, using Linux for eight years and the world wide web since 1994. So what criteria exactly would qualify me then as being from around here? I’m very well aware of the GPL, it’s history and many of it’s terms, though I claim to be no expert. Furthermore, nowhere did I imply the GPL was a hare brained scheme or a plot for world domination. Also, though I do not dispute the open source world would be very different without the GPL, it certainly would hardly be dead and dying.

I really don’t understand why people get their hackles up about the GPL. It’s just a license. It’s the developer’s choice. I have no clue what you’re talking about when you say that the GPL is “like over protective parents who refuse to let they’re children make up their own minds”. The developers choose the license. If they choose the GPL and I want to tinker with the source, I have to comply with the license. It’s really not that hard. There’s nothing overprotective about it.

I don’t understand how people get “all up in hackles” when BSD code is used within the boundries of its liscense. It’s a design of the liscense to allow it to get along better with other liscenses. I’m also fully aware that the developers choose the liscense, if they didn’t I’d frankly be very concerned. I also mean exactly what I say when I say it, once GPL code is released it can’t be closed again, and this doesn’t seem like a very trusting development model to other developers in my opinion. Some may take from the code in the BSD liscense, close source it and never relase it again. However as long as the developer is never caught he can do just the same with GPL code. People who are going to steal code are going to steal code regardless. I’d rather someone contribute back because they want to rather than being forced to within the liscense. Very few developers however would fall under that category. Furthermore, yes it is over protective, GPL does not aloow itself to fit in with many other liscenses. I would certainly call that over protective, even xenophobic to a degree.

If anything, the original developer of the software is being protective of their investment of time and effort.

I don’t have a problem with that, develoers work hard and deserve to choose what to do with their own projects.

The GPL is merely the vehicle by which they assure their labors stay in the public arena and aren’t absconded by some company with selfish intentions (which, if you follow any kind of tech news at all, are the norm, not the exception… see any DRM company’s disassembled code).

You know I don’t mean to be rude, but where do you get off making all these assumptions about me? I am fully aware there are selfish companies out there and a lot of them and it applies across every single spectrum of the economy and if you’re refering to the XCP incident I beleive it was GPL code that was found in the DRM; therefore, the liscense apparently didn’t seem to stop them. Open source code is going to be stolen as long as greedy human beings exist out there. I don’t seem to think though that because greed exists in the world we should treat all closed source developers who want to use opensource code in their products as criminals. I’d rather leave attitudes like that to the music and movie companies.

Your assumption that privately co-opted BSD code somehow leads to better code and coding standards is not only baseless, it’s stupid. Where is it said that good code and open code are mutually exclusive? I’d like to see those statistics, please.

Nowhere did I state that open source and good code were mutually exculsive, but it would appear at least in my opinion that you enjoy making assumptions. Also statistics can be made to prove anything so I’d rather not bother looking for any, especially those I don’t support. I did say that with BSD code it allows more developers to work on the code theorectically because it doesn’t discriminate as much. What I implied was that if more people work with the code and use it the better chances are that it will improve. More people working on a project does not necessarily gaurantee success, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

The entire OSS community owes its vitality to Linux and the success of the GPL, regardless of your thoughts on the license’s provisions. Each license has its strengths and weaknesses. It’s time for all this religious warfare surrounding a developer’s choice to stop. It’s childish.

The entire OSS community does not owe its vitality to the success of Linux or the GPL. The OSS community owes it’s vitality to hard working and incredibly giving developers involved in the community and the advocates who have stood behind them and support them throughout. Whether it be linux, BSD, haiku, openoffice or any other project.

I use opensource applications every day. many of them GPL liscensed. Nevertheless, I have criticisms of the liscense so why shouldn’t I express those criticisms so they’re at least out there. Which is what I did, but not once did I resort to personally attacking someone for their opinions. Open source is after all about cooperation and demeaning members of the community in no way advances it. I have certainly not declared religous war on linux or the GPL I simply put my opinion out bluntly that I didn’t care for the liscense that much, but I would never deny a developer’s right to choice. If you disagree with my opinion that is fine, you are entitled to it as I am to mine.

No what I am saying is that I don’t like when people TAKE your code and give you NOTHING back!

So Apple will make changes and even improvements to the code but yet those who made the code in the first place that Apple and MS are basing their Billion dollar companies from will get none of the billions, none of the code NOTHING!

And hello closed source code proves to be no more bug free or better then open source! The difference for instance with companies like Red Hat is that they are making 100’s of millions of dollars and yet people like the CentOS group can still make a little and poor guys like me who have done bug reporting for Fedora and wrote a little code (No I am not a big coder) can still get back for my work and use CentOS for free to run my servers!

I don’t care about closed source, what I care about is when people take other peoples work and make money off it while the people that did the work dont make anything! I am sure if someone took some code from Itunes Apple would sue you off the face of the earth. But hey if the people who do all the work don’t care then they dont care, I am actually not the one loosing money. I only work with GPL stuff that can’t be stolen!

It is ironic that your comment is an example of speculation gone wild. Without looking into genetics or the history of McCarthyism in any depth, you have “guessed” that they were okay, and then proceeded to built your argument on top of that (false) assumption.

Indeed. The truth is that both McCarthyism and Eugenics only make sense if your basic worldview closely follow the gospel of right-wing thinkers, i.e. that it’s okay to demonize people if they have leftist tendencies, and that IQ is an inherited trait (as opposed to an acquired one).

Needless to say, both philosophies are extremely dangerous, and (in the case of the second one at least) have no basis on scientific fact.

Even then, GPL fans misunderstand the license. It does not compel the second party to release their modifications. It merely denies them the right to distribute products based on the source if they refuse.

I guess you meant to say some GPL fans…I consider myself a GPL fan, and I’ve often stated this very fact (that you don’t have to release modifications) in these forums.

I’ll add that this misconception is common not only among some GPL advocates, but among people who are opposed to the GPL as well.

Ever hear of a game called Tux Racer? It was a GPL game, yet it’s primary developer did something quite similar to what Apple did to OSX86. They released early versions, got lots of fans who really wanted a cute downhill penguin sledding game to help make it better by making levels and enhancing the engine, then when it was at about version 0.6 or so, closed up the source, added some features like character skin selection and two-player head-to-head racing and started selling it as closed-source commercialware. The GPL (sadly, by my perspective, but happily by the perspective of those who would try things like that) nobody could do anything to stop them. The GPL code is still out there and quite playable, but it’s very limited and the only “live” descenadant of the open code (the company that sold the commercial version went bankrupt in a well-deserved stroke of divine justice) is far behind what the closed version had acheived.